2026 Public Poets Fellowship
From February to October 2026, Youth Speaks will engage its second cohort of young artists and alumni to participate in collaborative narrative projects and civic engagement that bridge public and poetic will, called the Public Poets Fellowship.
The goal of a Public Poet is to use the tools of narrative change and recognize the systems at play. They organize through culture, alchemizing poetry into a world that they have always deserved. We know culture moves faster than policy, and media shapes what people believe is possible: it matters who gets to tell the story.
Public Poets is more than a fellowship; it is Youth Speaks’ investment in continuity. From that first nervous poem to a new generation of public leaders, we are backing the narrative leaders who are. When poets step into their power as organizers, storytellers, and movement-builders, they don’t just witness the world, they remake it.
This fellowship is tremendously beneficial to young adults 19-26, who have either aged out of Youth Speaks’ core programs and services or are looking to deepen their artistic development with an eye on influencing the public sphere.
Fellows receive a $15,000 unrestricted stipend with opportunities for mentorship, peer learning, and movement and power-building training from field leaders.
Alinda “Adam” Mac is a Vietnamese writer, performer, teaching artist, and cowboy enthusiast from Houston, TX. Their work is inspired by South East Asian culture, myths, and monsters, as well as their life as a Vietnamese person living in the American South. They are the head coach and an alumni of the award-winning Meta4 Houston Youth Poetry Fellowship, hosted by Writers in the Schools. Adam is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. You can find their work in SAIC’s Mouth Magazine, WayWords Literary Magazine, on Houston Public Media, and in person on stages across their home city. When not creating, they quietly dream of opening a noodle shop with their father.
Aniya Butler is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, organizer, and seed grown in Oakland CA. Aiming to provide principled interventions on the ways we understand and shape the world, nourished by New Afrikan resistance and lineage, her work blooms at the crossroads of generational trauma, memory, environmental healing and sustainability, stewardship, and resistance—all influenced by the historical conditions of displacement, genocide, and refusal to be erased. She is currently a student at Wesleyan University studying medical anthropology, deepening her understanding of the intersections of health, the environment, and systems of power to reveal and define what health and thriving looks like to oppressed communities who have systematically been denied them. Aniya believes in the total liberation of all oppressed peoples and earth, centering the necessity of reclaiming land, body (labor), spirit, harmony, and connection to each other and earth - a return to sacred. Catch Aniya plotting to steward baby menaces, reading alongside natural wombs of memory, and on IG @a.alchxmist and substack @tmrsseeds
Delaney Jocelyn (she/her) is a Haitian-Jamaican slam poet, teaching artist, and arts organizer based in New York City. She is a student at New York University, where she created her own major, Educational Poetic Therapy, to explore how poetry can help people heal, express themselves, and connect with their communities.
Delaney is passionate about working with young people. As a teaching artist with Manifesto, she leads poetry workshops for foster youth and elementary students in the Bronx, helping them find their voices and process their experiences. She has also taught workshops at CUNY campuses, including Guttman Community College.
A committed performer, Delaney has competed at events including the Women of the World Poetry Slam, Brave New Voices, and Charm City Poetry Slam. She has performed at venues such as the Apollo Theater, Nuyorican Poets Café, and Rose Garden Events. She helped bring back the NYU Slam Team after years of inactivity, leading the team to its first competition win since its return, and served on Brave New Voices’ Future Corps, supporting programming and mentoring emerging poets.
Through performance, teaching, and organizing, Delaney uses poetry to educate, inspire, and empower her community."
Maria Zaki is a North Texas-based Coptic multidisciplinary artist and union barista. Raised just outside of Boston, she utilizes poetry and music to strengthen mental health and disability awareness within all spaces, as well as to promote cultural awareness and preservation. As a Starbucks Workers United Strike Captain, she works to uplift the working class, bringing ties to history’s labor actions into focus while using poetry as an avenue for expansion.
She has performed for GBH’s Outspoken Saturdays, WBUR, SBWU, Urban Word, and MassPoetry. Along with serving as strike captain for SBWU, Zaki has also served as outreach coordinator for the NorthBeast Poetry Festival, team captain for the MassPoetry slam team at the Brave New Voices Festival in 2024 and 2025, and more.
Marvin Flores, I identify as a Chicano poet, teaching artist, and community organizer. I stumbled across poetry by attending the Youth Speaks Bay Area Slam. Later that summer, I joined the team that went on to represent the Bay Area at the national youth slam in Washington, D.C. Since my return, my community work has centered on bringing poetry to underserved and underrepresented youth in the South Bay, with the goal of launching a youth slam specifically for local youth. I'm also a member of Los Jaguares, a student-led organization at Foothill College dedicated to political education, advocacy, and holistic community support—addressing the spiritual, physical, and mental well-being of Latino students and their broader communities.
Public Poets Fellowship 2024 Cohort
Tyris Winter
Ariana Lee
Nathan Wallace
Pte San Win
Sejah
For more information on the Public Poet Fellowship 2024 cohort follow @powerlab.global on Instagram.
Narrative Change Campaigns
Power Lab brings together youth, organizers, industry experts, and community leaders to leverage the power of culture to influence policy, combat misinformation, and heal civic trauma.
How It Works
- We bring together passionate young poets to learn about the power of public narratives and social justice storytelling
- We explore dominant narratives about complex issues at the center of young people’s lives
- We innovate and create new poems, ensemble performances, digital films, and PSAs that connect individual voices to collective stories
